Story highlights

Fiji Prime Minister Frank Bainimaram says people are left stunned and confused

Fiji reports that 17 people are dead and that damage and flooding are widespread

All schools in Fiji will stay closed for a week, disaster management agency says

(CNN)At least 17 people were killed in Fiji when a record-breaking storm struck the island nation Saturday night, according to a CARE Australia tweet citing Fiji's government.

Now that Tropical Cyclone Winston has passed, the arduous tasks of cleanup and damage assessment from the most powerful storm on record in the Southern Hemisphere has begun, authorities say.

"Many people have been left stunned and confused about what to do," Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama said after the storm passed. "The damage has been widespread, homes have been destroyed, many low lying areas have been flooded," CNN affiliate TVNZ in New Zealand reported him as saying.

Breaking records

CNN meteorologist Michael Guy said Winston is expected to "keep strength as it continues on its path in open waters." But, he said, "it will weaken Tuesday or Wednesday once it hits cooler waters and stronger shear."

This map showed a forecast track for the storm from early Sunday through early Wednesday Fiji time.

Winston's 184-mph winds smashed the previous record for a Southern Hemisphere cyclone. The old record of 178 mph was shared by Cyclone Zoe, which battered the Solomon Islands in 2002, and Cyclone Monica, which walloped Australia in 2006, according to Colorado State University hurricane expert Philip Klotzbach.

Had it occurred in the Atlantic, Winston would have been a Category 5 hurricane, but because of hemispheric nomenclature, it's dubbed a cyclone. (In the Northwest Pacific, it would be a typhoon; all three are the same weather phenomenon.)

Concerns for smaller villages

"It is likely that smaller villages across Fiji will have suffered the most, given their infrastructures would be too weak to withstand the power of a category 5 cyclone," said Suva resident Alice Clements, a spokeswoman for UNICEF in the Pacific.

"Families may have lost their homes and crops, therefore leaving them without shelter, food and a livelihood."

Although not hit directly, the capital, Suva, endured damaging gale-force winds, heavy rain and power outages. Clements, who was in Suva when the storm struck, said the city experienced "destructive, howling winds, and the sound of rivets lifting from roofs a constant throughout the night."

More than 1,200 people were in evacuation centers around the country, the disaster management ministry said.

The Colonial War Memorial Hospital in Suva suffered extensive water damage, and the roof of a local hospital was blown off in the northwestern town of Ba, said Sune Gudnitz, head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs regional office for the Pacific.

The western city of Nadi, on Fiji's main island, suffered minor wind damage but experienced extensive flooding, CNN affiliate TVNZ reported.

Fiji, an archipelago collectively about the size of New Jersey, lies in the South Pacific Ocean some 1,800 miles from Australia's east coast. (By comparison, Hawaii is about 2,500 miles from Los Angeles.)

Most of the nation's 900,000 residents live on one of two main islands: Viti Levu or Vanua Levu.